Chleb I Sól
Bread And Salt
Trailer
Two brothers. Both pianists. Tymek stands on the brink of making his international breakthrough. Jacek meanwhile stayed behind in the pair’s provincial hometown and has few achievements to talk of. They hang out together with old friends. As they wander around aimlessly and have fun on basketball courts, the atmosphere is reminiscent of that of a holiday camp. At the same time a deep-seated frustration at their stagnant provincial existence is unmistakable. In the town’s newly opened kebab shop increasingly aggressive jokes against the Arab owners start to surface amongst the otherwise tired adolescent numbers. At first, Tymek attempts to make a stand against the group’s racism; later however he finds himself joining in with the laughter. All the while he plays Chopin on the family’s out-of-tune piano together with his brother and struggles to find the heart to kiss his childhood sweetheart. This subtle feature film debut from Damian Kocur, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, is a film about people who have been robbed of their identity and at the same time refuse to accept that of others. The world that Kocur portrays is that of his youth. Lead actor Tymoteusz Bies is a childhood friend and a real-life rising star in the piano world.
Text: Kira Taszman
English: Peter Rickerby
Stadthalle: Original version with English subtitles + German simultaneous translation.
Weltspiegel Saal 2: Original version with English subtitles
Damian Kocur
Tomasz Woźniczka
Katarzyna Białas, Łukasz Kaczmarski
Ewa Mroczkowska
Tymoteusz Bies as Tymoteusz
Jacek Bies as Jacek
Dawid Piejko as Dawid
Nikola Raczko as Nikola
Nadim Suleiman as Nadim
Nadeem Shalave as Nadeem
Silesia Film Institute, KIVI Rental, King House Michał Sadowski, EXA Studio
Damian Kocur - Damian Kocur is a graduate of the Krzysztof Kieślowski Faculty of Radio and Television of the University of Silesia in Katowice. His movies were shown and prized at numerous festivals all over the World (AFI DOCS, Camerimage, Gdynia FF, Watersprite FF etc) He made documentaries and short fiction films.
"Lekcja" (‘Lesson’), short fiction (2013)
"21 dni" (’21 Days’), short documentary (2014)
"To, czego chcę" )’What I Want’), short fiction (2015)
"Powrót" (‘The Return’), short fiction (2016)
“Nic nowego pod słońcem” (‘Nothing New Under the Sun’), short fiction (2017)
“1410”, short fiction (2018)
“Moje serce” (‘My Heart’), short fiction (2019)
“Dalej jest dzień” (‘Beyond Is the Day’), short fiction (2020)
“Chleb I sól” (‘Bread and Salt’), feature debut (2022)